Hounds of the Past
by Star Girl11
Summary: The records had been sealed when he was a kid. Tucked in a corner of the database where no one was supposed to find them. But if the Narada proved anything, anything can be done. Even finding records that were supposed to be untraceable. And now Jim's got to face down his past again not only under the public eye but in front of his own crew.
1. Past Hounds

AN: Hello my readers. Thanks for dropping in to check out the story. This is a response to a prompt on the Star Trek Into Darkness Kink Meme. It's a rather long prompt so I am going to give you the shorthand version according to moi: Frank was thrown into jail when Jim was a kid because of him being abusive to Jim, the media finds out about it after the events of the battle with the Narada spaceship, and fall out occurs. The prompt is basically to write the fallout of the media finding out, the information going public and the crew rallying behind him.

So um please enjoy chapter one!

Chapter 1

Past Hounds

It was two days after they had finally got back to Earth from everything with the Narada. The silence in the living space he and Bones shared was broken, when his comm went off. Figuring it was one of the Admiralty calling for clarification again about yesterday's debriefing, he flipped it open saying, "Kirk here."

"Jim. It's your mother." came the familiar voice filtering through the device.

"Not that I love to talk to you Mom, but what can't wait until you get here on the shuttle in a few hours?" he said rubbing his forehead slightly. Winona had been on a mission of her own in deep space when everything had been going down with Nero. She had just managed to get some time off to come and visit.

"The press found out about Frank." She said softly.

"Well, fuck. Are you sure?" he said, getting out of bed and heading over to the kitchenette area. He was going to need some coffee if he was going to continue this conversation.

"Positive. They don't have a lot of details yet. But I have been getting comms for the last couple hours with increasing frequency all related to you and him."

"How much have they figured out so far?" he asked, taking a long swig of the coffee.

"Only that Frank spent about 10 years in jail and he was imprisoned on charges related to you. They don't know what the charges were yet." she said.

"Great," he said, massaging his forehead slightly, he can start to feel a headache coming on. This was going to be a long day. Maybe he should wake up Bones and ask for some pain-killers just so he could bite this before it fully formed.

"At least they haven't figured out the full details yet. But if you want to keep this from getting out of hand, you are going to have to inform the higher ups of what happened back then. Does anyone in Starfleet even know about what happened?" she asked.

"Bones has suspicions but never pushed for details. Pike of course knows because he's the one I have to get permission from to take time off for the parole hearings. Other than that the only people in Starfleet who definitely would know would be the ones who did my physical when you dragged me to San Francisco right after the car incident. But I'm not even sure if they still work here anymore. As for anyone else knowing, your guess is as good as mine at the moment. You know how much I hate talking about this, so probably _no_." he says almost snapping at the end.

"I know you hate talking about it. Almost as much as I hate talking about anything from that period before we moved to San Francisco. But if you are going to keep the entire Federation from finding out the entire details of what went down, _you_ are going to have to talk to at least a few people." she snapped back, pushing Jim further. It was for his own safety.

"I am well aware of that, I just don't even know where to start! The PR people will probably want just more information just to use it as a sob story so I don't want to talk to them. The Admirals aren't exactly my best friends, and Chris just had another surgery done yesterday to have some additional repair done on the nerves from the parasite Nero used on him so I can't really consult him yet." he said, running a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"What about that Vulcan you were working with on the Enterprise? You two did just save the Earth together. Maybe he can help? Comm him and see if he'll be able to at least point you in the direction of someone who can figure out this mess," she suggested.

"'m not sure how favorably he views me. We were on okay terms when the Enterprise docked, but that may have had more to do with the fact I was acting captain at the time." he muttered, flopping back down on the couch. While him and Spock had gotten along fairly well on the journey home all things considered. And he had apologized for the bridge incident as he was recalling it, he wasn't exactly sure if the Vulcan had accepted it or not.

"Have you said something to him since your arrival back on Earth that could be construed as offensive to others?" she asked, sarcasm coloring her voice. He may not have a visual, but he could practically see the eyebrow raise he knew she must be doing.

"It's not anything that's happened since we docked. I haven't seen any of the crew other than Bones since we finally made it back to Earth, so it's not like I've had a chance to accidentally offend them. No, this is about what happened in space. In order to get the position, I had to get him to admit he was _emotionally compromised_. That meant having me to say things about his feelings towards his dead mother that I probably wouldn't have said in a normal situation." He said with no pause. Why was it so exhausting talking to his own mother?

"Jim!" came the sharp tone.

"Look I apologized. And I do regret it but if in the same situation I would do it again. Because he sure wasn't going to back to Earth to try and stop Nero, he was heading for the Laurentian system where most of the rest of the fleet was. And if Nero got to Earth then I don't think even reuniting with the rest of the fleet would end up making an impact in the long run. You didn't see what the sky around Vulcan was like before they destroyed it, Mom. I did." he said the last words as softly as he could.

He had already had this discussion multiple times with the admiralty over the last couple of weeks as they had crawled home after defeating Nero. He was getting rather tired of sounding like a broken record on this subject matter.

"Well, if you did apologize, maybe try him anyway. Vulcans are logical creatures first and foremost, and it isn't exactly logical to hold grudges especially when one apologizes for their actions. So it might be worth at least seeing if he can point you in the right direction." She said after a minute of quiet thinking. It sounds as though she was trying to assure herself rather than her son.

"Maybe." he agreed with some hesitation.

There was a sigh from her end before she said, "Look I'll be there by the afternoon and then will see about getting this sorted out before it gets too out of hand. But really, the sooner you act the better because that gives them less time to track down the full story about what happened with Frank."

He rolled his eyes even if she couldn't see him before replying, "All right, all right I'll at least consider leaving a message for him okay? Have a safe remainder of your trip and I'll see you later today."

"That's all I ask. Take care for now, Jim." She stopped, and continued, "and try not to scare any reporters you see in the meantime okay?" she sounded like a mother telling her five year old kid not to paint on the walls again.

"Yeah, Mom. See you soon." he said trying not to roll his eyes again as he hung up the comm. Honestly, it wasn't like he had a history with the press or anything like she had from when he was a kid. She had been rather notorious for running off any members of the press who had gotten close enough to them to actually be heard after she had started spending more time on Earth when he was a teenager.

He hesitated for a second before picking up the comm and dialing a different number. Not too surprised when it rolls over to a message machine considering the hour he starts talking, "Hi, Spock. It's Kirk. Look, I'm sorry to call this early, but I was wondering if you could help me with something. Someone in the media came across something extremely personal from my childhood, I would rather they had not have found out about. I need to get in touch with someone who handles PR stuff at Star fleet but I don't know where to begin," he sighed, taking in a huff of air before continuing, "So I was hoping you might. Anyway, if you could give me a comm back when you get a chance, I would appreciate it thanks." He hanged up rather quickly and shook his head. This was going to be messy.

Closing the comm he decided it was best to see if he could sleep again for now. Even after drinking coffee, there was nothing to do but sleep. He doubt anything could get very worse in the couple of hours that it would take to find a person to help sort this whole mess out.

End Chapter One

AN So that's a wrap for the first chapter. I know things are a bit confusing right now. And you guys probably have a dozen questions. And I promise that pretty much the vast majority of them will be answered in Chapter 2. And yes this will include how Jim and Winona are actually on good terms in spite of her leaving him with an abuser for a few years. It will all be explained.


	2. Why You Should Never Put Things Off

AN: Hey! So this turned out to be a bit more problematic than planned to get to you but its finally here. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully Chapter 3 won't take nearly as long (I'm still working out some details on my end so its not with beta yet, but she is pretty fast when were in actual contact with each other).

A huge thank you to every one who not only read the first chapter but has been patiently waiting for this one. And thank you for all the kudos, favs, alerts, review, comments, you get the idea. Each email from and AO3 alerting me makes my complete and total day. Especially since I am just starting to write for the fandom.

A thanks to my beta beam-me-up-cas for betaing it so quickly once we were able to get it in touch.

And without further ado please enjoy Chapter 2.

Chapter 2

Why You Should Never Put Things Off

There is an old saying that you should never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Or in Jim's case you shouldn't put off something for a couple hours because you think your codes will hold long enough for you find a PR person to sort the mess out.

By the time he got back up again, the media apparently had managed to find his own comm number on top of finding his Mom's. Since he had more missed calls in the last four hours than he had received in the last forty-eight, Bones was already up by this point sipping on the coffee and reading over something. They had been basically ordered to take the next week off after the mess of the Narada and only to come in if it was an emergency. Though if the earlier conversation with his Mom continued to hold out he wondered how much longer it would be until he was called back in to discuss this mess.

He grabbed a cup of coffee from the replicator before beginning to look around for the remote to turn on the holo vids. He needed to see just how much the reporters had gotten their hands on. And that meant facing the news reports.

He could practically feel the look Bones was giving him when he asked, "What are you looking for?"

"The remote," he said dryly as he dropped on the couch.

"Jim, it's just going to be about Nero and us, you know that," Bones said, looking over at him with a frown.

"Not if what my Mom was saying is true," Jim muttered more to himself as he finally located the darn remote.

"What?" Bones asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing, Bones. I got a message from my Mom and I needed to check the news about _it_." he said as he hit the power button.

Any further conversation was cut off as he turned to one of the news networks. The woman was in the middle of giving a report, "-Kirk's stepfather is still currently in jail though we have been unable to uncover how many of these charges are true-"

He saw Bones reach for the remote to probably mute the video. "Not yet, Bones. I need to know how much they know." He said quite desperately.

"Jim-" Bones began to protest.

"Just a few minutes, Bones and then I'll turn it off, okay? I wouldn't be listening to this if I didn't need to." he said reassuringly, trying to wave off his friend.

"Did you know they were going to be reporting about this?" Bones asked suspiciously, looking at him with a frown.

"My mom called early this morning, saying she had started getting comms from reporters concerning this." He gestured to the holo vid, "So kind of, but I didn't think they had managed to get their hands on this much information." he said narrowing his eyes as he heard the reporter list off possible charges that Frank was in jail for. Some of them were true, others had been tossed, which made him wonder what the source they had been using was, and how credible it was since they had yet to mention the charge that had landed Frank his long jail sentence.

"Jim did he really do all of these things?" Bones asked softly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he continued to listen to the news.

"Some of it. Some of what they're saying is false," he said with a shrug as the door bell went off. He knew Bones was probably seeing where the old scars that he had cataloged but had no information on record from were probably actually from.

Bones looked like he was going to say something when the bell went off again causing him to turn his glare towards the door. Jim sighed as he stood to get it muting the holo vids as the news finally went to commercial since he doubted Bones was going to answer it. Probably thinking it was another summon from the admiralty. Which it could very well be but considering the lack or amount of comms from other people, there was a large amount of people that could be at the door right now. Only to be shoved back on the couch by Bones who said, "Oh no, you don't. I'm not risking you running off with someone other than the higher ups until you explain what the hell is going on. I'll get it."

He rolled his eyes at that but allowed Bones to get the door, wondering who was bothering them right now. Both of his eyebrows went up in surprise when Bones let in a visibly annoyed Uhura and a passive Spock. He had honestly been expecting either a simple comm or maybe no comm considering everything going on from the Vulcan. After a second he said, "Not that I mind seeing you two ever, what's with the early morning visit?"

Uhura looked like she wanted to make a retort but Spock beat her to it, "I received your comm this morning. I and many of the Enterprise crew have been on the receiving end of comms from various members of the media asking if we had any knowledge about what they have been reporting on this morning."

Jim let out a groan as Bones said, "You contacted the hobgoblin about this?"

"I was hoping he might know someone who might be able to sort out this mess before it got out of hand. But if they are already contacting other crew members than it might be getting out of hand. Just who have they tried to contact so far?" Jim asked, visibly aggravated. He rubbed his forehead, feeling the start of a headache. This was going to be a very long day.

"Most of the alpha shift has been contacted from what I've heard. Gaila said she had a half dozen missed calls this mornings when we talked briefly from numbers she didn't recognize. Sulu and Chekov said they had just started to receive calls when I spoke to them. And Scotty didn't respond to my comms so it's hard to say whether or not he received comms of similar nature. He might have just been ignoring comms in general after answering a couple that were from the media. I've been hearing varying reports from other people who were also on the Enterprise during the Narada incident about comms from the media during the last few hours that also weren't on the bridge. So it looks like they are trying to find information wherever and whenever they can," Uhura said taking over.

Jim let out a slight groan this whole situation was getting more and more out of hand. It was one thing for the media to harass him about his past but it was another to apparently see if they could find something from the rest of the crew. Uhura spoke again after a second, "Captain, what exactly is this all about anyway? Why are they so fascinated with your step-father's imprisonment?"

"Hell if I know. I pretty much buried anything to do with it since then. The only time I think about it is for Frank's parole hearings. I don't even know how they found out about them because they had most of the records concerning his sentencing sealed. And that wasn't just for my sake. I wasn't Frank's only target prior to his arrest. Those records were sealed for a reason," he stated.

"The charges that the news report was listing are actually missing a few of the more grievous things that Frank was charged and jailed with. As grievous as physical child abuse is it's not enough in Iowa to give you this long of a sentence in jail with or without parole." he continued explaining after a couple of minutes.

"If your step-father was doing such crimes to warrant such a long criminal sentence, shouldn't your mother have picked up on it?" Spock asked, raising an eyebrow again.

Jim snorted lightly before saying, "My Mom is smart on most fronts but sometimes she lacks a bit in areas most people have. So sometimes she can miss something unless it smacks her right in the face like it did in our case. Though, admittedly, Frank was one sneaky bastard and knew how to hide things well so it wasn't entirely her fault for not realizing something was off at home the few times she was around when I was a kid. Hell, I didn't realize half of the stuff he was doing until he would start doing it to me sometimes. He knew better to do a lot of the seedy stuff than around two genius level kids unless the seedy stuff involved us directly."

"So how did she figure it out then?" Uhura asked, crossing her arms with a frown on her face.

"When I was 12, my brother ran away from home having reached the point where he couldn't take any more of what Frank was putting him through. Well, my brother was Frank's biggest money maker in his little underground business that he had been running for about a decade now apparently. And he had apparently been planning to bring me in to help bring some money in once I'm older. However, when he lost my brother, he lost his biggest profit so he brought me in early. That was kind of a snapping point for me and I took a drastic action that got my Mom's attention who took me to San Francisco to get looked at. And everything came out of the woodworks at that point." he finished off with a sigh, wrapping up the story and keeping out the more gruesome story of what Frank had actually put him and Sam through. He would take that part with him to the grave if he could get away with it.

"Why did it take her so long to find out about it? Logic dictates that if one has two children, one should be spending time around the children, not running deep space missions." Spock said coolly, though his eyes suggested confusion.

"Yeah well, logic doesn't always win mental human battles, Spock. She always cared for us. It's just she had problems showing it when I was a kid. I didn't understand until I was older, that she had a pretty bad case of depression that she refused to acknowledge and take on until everything with Frank went down. She did care for me and my brother, she just didn't know how to show it. She originally sent us to live with relatives because being earth bound at the time actually made things worse for her but she didn't think raising us on star ships was a good idea either. And then she married Frank partly because she thought she had fallen in love again and partly because she was trying to establish a permanent family figure in our life again. Of course that backfired spectacularly." Jim snorted. It had taken a few years to grasp the concept but once he had been old enough to understand what his Mom had been going through when he was a kid he had kind of understood her choices even if they hadn't been the best.

"Look, I'm not saying she was a perfect Mom growing up once she did start to raise me after everything went down with Frank. Far from it but she did try. She just didn't know how to do what should have come naturally after Dad's death. It took everything with Frank for her to straighten up and to start being a mother to me. Part of the agreement was when I started seeking help after everything with Frank was that she would also seek help. She didn't want to, really, but she did so for my sake," he said remembering those first few awkward months of when he had just been rescued from Frank's 'tender' care. Where they were almost tiptoeing around each other because they honestly didn't know how to handle the other and it had taken a while to learn how the other was because his Mom before than had spent so sporadic time on Earth around him and Sam.

"What about your brother? You said it took Frank for her to straighten for her to straighten out for you but you seemed to imply that he didn't see her as his mother in anything other than blood." Bones, who was silent all through-out his little story-telling, began to ask.

"That's because to him she's still not his mother. He still hasn't forgiven her for leaving us with Frank for those years. It took us nearly two years to track down my brother after everything was said and done with Frank. By then he wanted nothing to do with either of us, he initially said I shouldn't even forgive her and that he wouldn't have anything to do with anyone who forgave someone who was associated closely with Frank. Over time, he's changed his mind I guess, since he started talking to me again but yeah, last time I checked he still isn't talking with Mom and still blames her for everything involving Frank." he said taking another long sip of his coffee to wet his dry lips.

"And you don't?" Uhura scowled.

"When I was younger, yes. But once I was old enough to see some of the videos of what her initial reaction to the doctor's findings from Frank's abuse and her following actions, I realized there was no way she could have known. Because if she had, we would have been out of that household long before everything went down. Sam has access to all of the same stuff so I'm not sure why he hasn't come to the same realization. Stubbornness, maybe? Anyway, hopefully someday he'll begin to talk to her again before it's too late. Because everything I say right now isn't helping." he said shrugging his shoulders.

There was a slight lull again in the conversation. Uhura received a comm and excused herself before Jim turned back to Spock and asked, "So do you think you know anyone that might be able to help me sort out this kind of mess before it gets any more out of hand?"

Spock began, "Well there are a few people within Star fleet who will be able to probably assist you in your situation. You will probably have to be a bit more informative about what your step-father's crimes actually were in order for them to be of any help."

Jim rolled his eyes before replying, "Yeah, I'm aware of that but could you at least give me some names of whom to go to?"

Spock was about to reply when Uhura came hurrying back looking a bit worried. Jim looked at her, bewildered.

"Sulu just commed me saying we might want to turn on the news again," she said making a motion at the holo vid screen.

Jim felt the frown return as Bones retrieved the remote which had somehow gotten moved during the conversation and unmuted the screen just as the news returned from a commercial break. The news anchor started off with the usual opening before saying, "For those of you just tuning in, it was uncovered today that one of the recent Federation hero's Captain Kirk, was apparently the subject of severe child abuse and attempted murder at the hands of his step-father-"

He wasn't sure who hit the mute button this time but he was grateful because that opening had been enough to tell him all he knew. They had somehow found out the rest of the details involving Frank that was supposed to be sealed from public record.

"Jim?" Bones said, turning to him with a concerned look now.

"Shit." was the only response he was able to get out of his mouth.

End Chapter 2

AN: So that's it for Chapter 2. Yeah I know its kind of short for a long delay. But again delay was not on my end. So please leave a review and I'll probably see you in a week's time with Chapter 3 even if it means doing something weird with my sleep schedule to talk with my beta.


	3. AN: I Hate My Life

AN: So here we are again. Except this time instead of having a beta to blame we have a computer to blame. Possibly.

See I am uploading this tonight as I have just discovered my laptop has decided it doesn't want to turn on. Where all my fanfics are stored. Cue freak out by me.

I have no clue if this is a simple problem of my laptop not wanting to power on or if my harddrive has diead again. If its the later than Houston we have a problem the size of Texas. Since I am not sure how much fanfic is backed up on my external harddrive. At least on the Sailor Moon front. On the Star Trek front, none of it is. So if I lost any of my harddrive. I am going to have to start all the way from scratch. Lovely I know.

I am just praying to whatever gods there are that this can be resolved by a power cord replacement. Or a motherboard replacement. Or something that doesn't require me losing all my files. Because if I lose my files. Then you guys are looking at somewhere to a couple of weeks to a month or two before another chapter gets to you. Yeah thats how much data I could have lost in a crash. I won't know until this gets resolved.

Well except for the Different Path readers. Chapter 21 is with my readers so I could get to you it the next Friday after I finally get it back from here. But after that were in uncharted waters.

I hate my life.


End file.
